Former Northeastern worker sentenced for campus bomb hoax

A choose sentenced a former Northeastern College worker who staged a bomb hoax on the campus in 2022 to 1 12 months and someday in federal jail Monday, authorities stated.

Federal prosecutors requested that sentence in U.S. District Courtroom in Boston for Jason Duhaime, 47, in a Jan. 9 sentencing memorandum, describing his conduct as “extraordinarily disruptive and wasteful.” The sentencing comes after Duhaime pleaded not responsible and insisted that the bomb scare was not a hoax.

“Jason Duhaime apparently thought he might get away with staging a hoax explosion and mendacity to us about it, however this sentencing proves how fallacious he was,” stated Jodi Cohen, Particular Agent in Cost of the FBI Boston Division, in a press launch from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace.

Duhaime was employed because the know-how supervisor and director of Northeastern’s Immersive Media Lab when he staged the bomb hoax. On the night of Sept. 13, 2022, Duhaime known as campus police and claimed to be injured by sharp objects after opening a pressurized Pelican case contained in the lab, prosecutors stated. He additionally reported that the case contained an nameless “violent observe” which threatened to “destroy the lab.”

Investigators began pursuing Duhaime as a suspect after discovering no proof of an explosion or any objects like those he described within the lab. In addition they famous that there was “no bodily injury” to the Pelican case, Duhaime’s shirt, or the letter talked about in his report.

Investigators discovered a “word-for-word, digital copy” of the letter saved in a backup folder on Duhaime’s pc, in accordance with court docket paperwork. The rambling letter made a number of unfounded accusations that the college was working for Mark Zuckerberg and ended with threats that extra aggressive motion could be taken.

“Within the case you bought as we speak we might have planted explosives however not this time!!!” the observe acknowledged. “Take discover!!! You’ve gotten two months to take operations down or else!!!!! WE ARE WATCHING YOU.”

Investigators found that Duhaime created the letter simply hours earlier than he known as campus police at roughly 7 p.m. to report the purported explosion, prosecutors.

Duhaime additionally reported a couple of second, unopened Pelican case, prompting extra responses from Boston Police Division’s bomb squad and several other federal and state legislation enforcement companies. Considerations a couple of second case prompted an evacuation of a portion of the Northeastern campus.

Within the aftermath of that evening, Duhaime repeatedly recounted his false model of the occasions to legislation enforcement, first responders, and the press. In an interview with The Boston Globe the day after the scare, Duhaime denied staging the occasions and insisted that he was the sufferer of against the law.

“They should catch the man that did this,” Duhaime stated to the Globe.

Duhaime was arrested in San Antonio and charged Oct. 2, 2022. He was convicted by a federal jury in June 2024 of deliberately conveying false and deceptive data associated to an explosive system and making materially false statements to a federal legislation enforcement agent, prosecutors introduced on the time.

Duhaime’s lawyer, Scott Lauer, requested that his consumer be sentenced to time served and two years of supervised launch, in accordance with a Jan. 10 sentencing memorandum. Lauer cited Duhaime’s medical situation and lack of a previous felony document as components behind this request.

Within the memorandum, Lauer described Duhaime as being in a declining state of well being as a result of improvement of a spinal abscess which required him to endure “a significant surgical process” and obtain “in depth bodily remedy.” Regardless of these efforts, Duhaime is now “largely disabled, missing in power and mobility,” Lauer wrote within the memorandum.

Past his bodily well being, Lauer additionally described the toll that the case has taken on Duhaime’s skilled and private life.

“Now a convicted felon, this case has resulted in not solely the lack of a superb job, however a profession,” Lauer wrote. “It has depleted his life financial savings. Members of the family and mates have lower ties with him. And it has all unfolded below the glare of intense public scrutiny. The results to Mr. Duhaime for his conduct on this case have been profound and life-altering certainly.”

Regardless of Lauer’s request to regulate the sentence, United States Lawyer Joshua S. Levy stood by the sentence.

“Bomb hoaxes will not be a innocent act, they inflict concern, divert assets and put each first responders and the general public at actual danger as they race to the scene,” Levy stated in Tuesday’s press launch. “This sentence ought to ship a transparent message to everybody who engages in bomb threats and swatting incidents that you’ll be held accountable and that one telephone name might land you in jail.”